If you know someone who lives in Tacoma, it’s likely they have made one thing clear to you: they love Tacoma, and are very territorial about it.
And make no mistake, Marguerite Martin loves, and probably always will love, Tacoma.
It wasn’t just that she created the website movetotacoma.com. It isn’t just that she created Tacoma-related podcasts. It isn’t that she participated in civic conversations. Tacoma is a community that you can only really understand if you live there, and Marguerite was one of its biggest cheerleaders.
But eventually, Marguerite says, it became a struggle when she started to feel like she was “Marguerite, the thing, rather than Marguerite, the person.” She says that she felt like she lost her personal identity because she was so often identified by what she was doing in and for the city.
Listen to the story to hear how and why one of Tacoma’s biggest advocates ended up leaving town.
